Abstract
Collaborative completions are among the strongest evidence that dialogue requires coordination even at the sub-sentential level; the study of sentence completions may thus shed light on a number of central issues both at the `macro’ level of dialogue management and at the `micro’ level of the semantic interpretation of utterances. We propose a treatment of collaborative completions in PTT, a theory of interpretation in dialogue that provides some of the necessary ingredients for a formal account of completions at the ‘micro’ level, such a theory of incremental utterance interpretation and an account of grounding. We argue that an account of semantic interpretation in completions can be provided through relatively straightforward generalizations of existing theories of syntax such as Lexical Tree Adjoining Grammar (LTAG) and of semantics such as (Compositional) DRT and SituationSemantics. At the macro level, we provide an intentional account of completions, as well as a preliminary account within Pickering and Garrod’s alignment theory.
Highlights
Utterances such as 1.2, 1.3, and 2.2 in the following fragment of a transcript from the Bielefeld Toy Plan Corpus of task-oriented dialogues (Skuplik, 1999) are examples of the constructions that Clark (1996) called COLLABORATIVE COMPLETIONS. (1.1)1.1 Inst So, jetzt nimmst Du [pause] Well, you take1.2 Cnst eine Schraube a screw1.3 Inst eine orangene mit einem Schlitz. an orange one with a slit 1.4 Cnst Ja YesPOESIO AND RIESER2.1 Inst Und steckst sie dadurch, And you put it through there, let’s see2.2 Cnst von oben from the top2.3 Inst von oben, daß die drei festgeschraubt werden dann from the top, so that the three bars get fixed
One could argue that the basic criterion of adequacy of a semantic theory of dialogue is the ability to characterize for any utterance type the update that emerges in the aftermath of successful grounding ... this is the early 21st century analogue of truth conditions
What was presented in this paper is the first formal account of a crucial aspect of this process of coordination in dialogue: the fact that coordination can be achieved at the level of the single utterance
Summary
Utterances such as 1.2, 1.3, and 2.2 in the following fragment of a transcript from the Bielefeld Toy Plan Corpus of task-oriented dialogues (Skuplik, 1999) are examples of the constructions that Clark (1996) called COLLABORATIVE COMPLETIONS
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